Cisco CCNA (200-301) exam objectives
Cisco publishes 6 exam domains with official weightings. The weight tells you where your marks come from — study time should roughly follow it.
200-301AssociateIntermediate
1. Network Fundamentals
20%- The OSI and TCP/IP models used as a troubleshooting tool, not trivia
- IPv4 addressing and subnetting, including VLSM — practised until it is fast
- IPv6 addressing, address types and basic configuration
- Cabling, interfaces, and interpreting interface state from show output
2. Network Access
20%- VLANs, access and trunk ports, and inter-VLAN routing
- Spanning Tree Protocol — root election, port roles, and PortFast/BPDU Guard
- EtherChannel with LACP and PAgP
- Wireless fundamentals: WLC architecture, AP modes, and SSID configuration
3. IP Connectivity
25%- Reading the routing table and predicting path selection
- Administrative distance and metrics when several sources offer a route
- OSPFv2 single-area: neighbour states, DR/BDR election, and common adjacency failures
- Static routing, default routes, and first-hop redundancy with HSRP
4. IP Services
10%- NAT and PAT configuration and troubleshooting
- DHCP server, client and relay behaviour
- NTP, DNS and syslog in an operational context
- QoS concepts and per-hop behaviour at a conceptual level
5. Security Fundamentals
15%- Access control lists — placement, direction, and implicit deny
- Layer 2 protections: port security, DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP inspection
- AAA concepts, and device-access hardening with SSH
- Wireless security — WPA2/WPA3 and authentication methods
6. Automation and Programmability
10%- Why automation exists: configuration drift, scale, and repeatability
- REST APIs, and reading JSON returned by a network device
- Controller-based networking and Cisco DNA Center concepts
- Configuration-management tools — Ansible, Puppet, Chef — at a comparison level
Our practice exam distributes its questions across these exact domains at these weightings — so your score per domain tells you precisely where you stand.
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